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Jesse
Bethke
Gomez
was selected as recipient of the
2005 Community Leader of the Year award by La Prensa de Minnesota at its
15th year anniversary celebration held at The Quest Nightclub
on
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
. This award recognizes the
Latino leader who has made the greatest contribution to the community in
the previous year.
Mr.
Bethke Gomez has been President
of CLUES for 10 years working tirelessly on issues such as healthcare
access for Minnesota’s Latino community, providing support services for
people overcoming barriers while transitioning from welfare to work,
advancing wealth creation for diverse communities and promoting civic
engagement as a means for advancing civility and the capacity of people to
care for one another.
Under
his leadership, CLUES has become the first Minnesota Latino agency to
launch a major $6 million capital campaign.
Phase One provided funds to renovate the
Coliseum
Building
for new CLUES offices in
Minneapolis
in 2001.
Phase Two is providing funding for the building of the new CLUES
headquarters on the East Side of St. Paul.
Bethke
Gomez
, along with several public
officials, helped to bring the 46th Consulate of Mexico in the
United States
to
St. Paul
.
The Consulate now located in CLUES’
St. Paul
offices opened in
June
of this
year.
Both
CLUES office sites have medical clinics that serve Spanish-speakers
because of
Bethke
Gomez
’s vision.
This came about because of a client survey done in 1999, which
showed that most CLUES clients went “nowhere” when they had a health
care need. Once he became
aware of the results of this survey, Bethke Gomez was determined that
CLUES would partner with a community health care provider at each of CLUES
major office sites in order to ensure that Latinos, especially
Spanish-speakers, had access to health care.
At its
Minneapolis
offices, CLUES partners with La
Clinica en
Lake
, a clinic operated by West Side
Community Health Care Services. At
its
St. Paul
offices, CLUES is partnering
with HealthEast Care Systems, which will open Salud
Integral - a bilingual and bicultural clinic - in
September of this year.
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